大象传媒

Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett, C.B.E., LL.D.,exhibited 1930
Annie Swynnerton (1844-1933)
Oil on canvas,聽Tate
漏Tate, London 2017聽

WOMEN ARE

Women are not all made of sugar and spice

and all things nice,

We do not all worship at the alter

of glittery unicorns and excessive pink.

Neither are we all magically born

with an abundance of nurturing skills

that spontaneously put crying babies to sleep

with a well-sung lullaby or a simple gentle touch.

We have been forged,

Through blood, sweat and tears,

Through the hours spent in excruciating labour

Through the steps we have had to fight

to get out of the house and into the workplace.

and once there to be treated with respect and equality.

We are the cries of refugee women

who have drowned

anonymously at sea.

The misplaced shame of those

who have fallen victim

to the casting couch or sexual slavery.

We are the tapping fingers

of female millennials

who are no longer afraid to say

鈥淢e to.鈥�

We are sacrifice of Emily Pankhurst and her fellow suffragettes,

The hunger strikes, the marches,

the cat and mouse games

We are the Purple, white and green

they adopted symbolising dignity, purity and hope

We are the women who stayed behind

during WW1 and WW2

and held their countries together

whilst their men went off to war.

We are the devastated souls,

who crawled broken from the gaping wounds

left behind when they failed to return,

We have been forged out of the pen of Gwendolyn Brooks,

The phenomenal talent of Maya Angelou

and her demand that we rise.

We have been carved out of the richness

of the colour purple woven by Alice Walker.

the demands of 鈥淎in鈥檛 I a woman鈥� by Sojourner Truth

and the fight and perseverance of women like Marcia Rigg. 聽

We are

The hunter and gatherers

The mothers,

The nurses,

The teachers

The Drs

The pilots

The 聽Scientists,

The politicians,

The lecturers,

The poets,

The writers,

The dreamers

The survivors

We are all of this and more.

漏 Kat Francois